Measuring Sustainable Urban Development: The Case of India, Europe and Germany

Sustainable development has become a global agenda that was institutionalized through the United Nations' Millennium Declaration in 2000 and was later promoted by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in 2015. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as part of the 2030 Agenda emerged as a comprehensive global framework for fostering universal development, with a vision of 'leaving no one behind'. Both India and Germany are committed towards the 2030 Agenda. In light of this commitment, this article attempts to understand the initiatives taken by both the countries and by Europe to monitor the progress towards the achievement of the targets at the local/city level. It tries to understand the challenges in an urban data ecosystem for monitoring the progress (or regress) of the SDGs within the geographies. Lastly, the article puts forward recommendations for the timely assessment of sustainability measures and it advocates for the generation of granular data on a regular basis.